Ethics chair gets hit with litigation from a foe

A Westchester businessman, Sam Zherka, is suing Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore, alleging she used taxpayer resources to defend herself from a previous suit by him from 2007.

The State Supreme Court Westchester County suit, filed on Thursday, alleges she used $175,000 in taxpayer funds in the matter. The alleged expenditure involves the cost of a lawyer to defend her from the 2007 Zherka litigation, a time she was DA and was allegedly upset with a story in a newspaper published by Zherka that concerned DiFiore’s husband, another lawyer. She demanded a retraction.

“This is a continuation of the political hatchet job; it’s ongoing,” says the DA’s spokesman Lucien Chalfen. Zherka has a vendetta against DiFiore, says Chalfen.

The new suit quotes from an alleged cell phone conversation between DiFiore, who is chairwoman of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, and Zherka. A transcript that Zherka says represents the recorded conversation contains salty language from the DA, who is quoted as saying she “I’m not calling as the DA. I’m calling as a person who is angry at what was written about a member of her family.”
He plans a press conference Monday in White Plains to discuss the new case.

In the earlier case, Zherka alleged the recorded conversation showed she threatened him when she allegedly was speaking as a private citizen not as a public employee.

“This was essentially a private lawsuit; she no longer had any right to have the county defend her for her actions as a private citizen,” said David Carlebach, Zherka’s lawyer. The 2007 case was a Civil Rights case that was dismissed.

In his new suit, Zherka also brings up the wealth of the DiFiore family, describing multimillion-dollar homes and a luxury car worth $225,000. His own wealth comes from real estate holdings, adult entertainment clubs in New York City and a publication called the Westchester Guardian. He was a generous backer of DiFiore’s primary competitor, Tony Castro in 2009.